英語で読む日経サイエンス

Ever since he can remember, even as a boy growing up on a small farm in Michigan, Ken Martin has battled betrayal by his own body. Now 50 years old, Martin was born with hemophilia, and he bleeds almo … 続きを読む →

A Chinese riddle invites one to guess the identity of runners without a leg, swimmers without a flipper, gliders without a wing. The answer, of course, is snakes. Today more than 3,000 species share a … 続きを読む →

When I began training as a surgeon about two decades ago, I was eager to treat tumors, gallbladder stones, hernias and all other conditions within reach of a scalpel. Surgery seemed like a direc … 続きを読む →

I hate clouds. Not because they sometimes bring rain but because they are hard. Clouds come in all shapes and sizes: wispy, high cirrus, puffy cumulus, the low, gray stratocumulus layers that blanket … 続きを読む →

I love Yellowstone National Park. I have visited countries as far east as Japan, followed the footsteps of Romans, looked up at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, experienced volcanoes from afar and close up, … 続きを読む →

For decades public health officials thought the Zika virus caused only relatively mild illnesses in people. Since the start of an outbreak in Brazil in 2015, however, it has become horribly clear that … 続きを読む →

As the clock neared 9 p.m. on July 14, 2015, I stood with then NASA administrator Charles Bolden and others in our mission control at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Marylan … 続きを読む →

Last year, when researchers   in Cambridge, Mass.,   announced that they   had found a gene strongly   linked to a higher risk of   schizophrenia, the news   media reac … 続きを読む →

My alarm woke me early. I was in a hotel room in London, near the headquarters of the BBC. I hadn’t slept well. When I looked in the bathroom mirror, I saw someone pale and slightly terrified. I h … 続きを読む →

Clown fishes live their entire adult lives nestled in the protective arms of a single sea anemone on a coral reef. Between birth and adulthood, however, the fishes have to complete a treacherous jour … 続きを読む →

I’m standing on a catwalk in a giant cave crammed with industrial equipment, and I’m told that trillions of neutrinos are flying through every inch of my body each second. I reach out my arms as … 続きを読む →

Tumor immunologists have known for decades that the immune system can be an important ally in the fight against cancer. Most early attempts to recruit its potential proved disappointing, however. It t … 続きを読む →

Some evening when Saturn is high in the sky and the night is clear and dark, take a look through a backyard telescope. When you have had your fill of the planet’s awe and beauty, search online for … 続きを読む →

One quiet afternoon in the fall of 2014, just as the trees were changing from green to gold, Tabetha Boyajian visited our astronomy department at Pennsylvania State University to share an unusual disc … 続きを読む →

大きな脳などの特徴をヒトは進化の過程でどのように獲得したのか？　それらのもとになる遺伝子を新たに獲得したのだろうと考えがちだが，そうではないようだ。近年のゲノム解析で，他の哺乳動物にあってヒトでは失われたDNA配列が50 … 続きを読む → When we visit a zoo and peer at our closest living relatives, the great apes, two things reliably captivate us. One: they look so very much like people. The expressive faces and the grasping hands of … 続きを読む →